A Sabbath Rest

My wife and I hosted our small group last Saturday. A Swiss couple is a part of our group. Somehow in our discussion of the material in our chapter from Mere Christianity, Doris – our Swiss friend – asked why in America (especially here in the Bible Belt) we do everything on Sunday just like every other day. She said, for instance, in her homeland they would not mow their lawns on Sunday. In their culture, if your neighbor were to mow his yard on Sunday, and you giving him a dirty look did not cause him to put the mower up until another day, you could call the police and they would encourage your neighbor to put the mower up. Doris and Adrian are obviously annoyed in our culture with the fact that on any given Sunday they are likely to have the tranquillity of the day broken multiple times as different neighbors choose different times of the day to mow their lawn.

We had a very interesting discussion about Sabbath observance. We talked about “blue laws” from my youthful years that have mostly been repealed. It was hard to find a restaurant or other business open on Sunday when I was growing up. I don’t remember any prohibitions about mowing the lawn. It seems that we mowed in the evenings or on Saturday, but I don’t remember that having any religious basis.

I remember being convicted about shopping on our day of rest (Sunday) a few years ago. It seemed to me that we Christians had come to treat Sunday like any other day. The Hebrews had a practice of preparing themselves for the Sabbath (Saturday). The day before the Sabbath was called “The Day of Preparation”; that is, the day to prepare for observing the Sabbath. If you are not going to shop or mow your yard or wash your car or . . ., you would need to think ahead, plan ahead. That is what Preparation Day was.

I suggested to my wife back then that we have a mental “Day of Preparation” so that we would not have to make a trip to the store on Sunday. We have made that effort for some time. We often go out to eat on Sunday, with or without friends and family. I’m aware of the fact that that makes someone else have to work on Sunday.

The Chick-fil-A chain closes on Sunday. Frankly, I haven’t figured out if they are not being very good servants or if I am not being very consistent in my theology. I definitely avoid working on my day of rest, but like it that others (at least in restaurants) don’t share my convictions.

It was an interesting experience to look at our culture through the eyes of outsiders. I do think that most of us Christians have dumbed-down our ideas about Sabbath observance.